And so the rest of the week went by.
Most days Claire, Bender, Andy, Alyson and Brian hung out together in the cafeteria for lunch. None of them were bothered by the constant staring and rumors about why there were all suddenly friends and hanging out in a group. Everybody saw them as the biggest groups of misfits in the school.
Even the teachers noticed the new group of friends.
Richard Vernon had immediately suspected that it was all Bender's doing, that he had brainwashed the four others into hanging around with the other potheads. But when Vernon saw that on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday lunchtimes that Bender wasn't even with the other potheads but in the cafeteria with the Breakfast Club or with Claire at the football grounds, he couldn't believe it himself.
Andy and Alyson made their relationship become public and immediately the wrestling team gave them shit about it. By Thursday though Andy had threatened his team, coach and dad that he would quit the team if they didn't just get over themselves and stay out of his personal life.
Brian had thrived off his new friends over the week. He was much happier at school and shop didn't seem like a burden with Bender in his class. Bender had helped him rebuild his elephant for reassessment and Brian had managed to get a B-. Although Brian had now become Bender's private tutor for bottom math.
Out of everyone though, it was Claire and Bender who seemed to have bloomed the most during the week, although they had had their own drawbacks along the way.
Bender finally faced his friends and told them about Claire. They gave him so much shit about it that he ended up losing his temper and putting them all back in their place by laying a punch or two on them. Just as a reminder that he was still the biggest badass in the whole school.
Claire had completely stopped talking to Mary Smith and the rest of the popular group. She didn't even look at them anymore whenever they walked past or if they were in the same class as her.
Claire Standish was no longer popular nor was she going to become Prom Queen and she really was past caring. She had John Bender and that was more than enough to compensate for her social loss.
Everyday they had made out, talked, hugged and everything wonderful in-between.
As perfect though everything seemed, they had also fought everyday as well. Claire had never expected that having John Bender as a boyfriend would be easy, but she had never thought that it would be as hard as it was sometimes.
On Tuesday they had fought about the confrontation between Bender and his friends. Wednesday's argument had been about Bender wanting to copy her assignment for History and him refusing her help when she offered help for him to write his own. During Thursday it had been Claire's fault when she growled at him for ruffling her hair for fun.
It had been Friday's argument though that had been the biggest…and the worst.
&&&
On Friday afternoon in History Bender was doodling on Claire's pencil case, board with the day's lesson.
Claire looked at his graffiti and instantly anger filled her. Her mood sunk to an all time low of annoyance and anger for him, but Claire didn't show any of it.
In silence she copied the notes off the board and completely ignored Bender's desecration on her pencil case.
He carefully noted her discreet ignorance of his actions and he was really surprised that she hadn't yelled at him yet.
Normally she would have growled at him and they would have fought, but it seemed she was deliberately ignoring him…
"I'm not going to fight you." She whispered quietly out of the corner of her mouth.
Immediately he stopped doodling and looked fully at her with the utmost confusion.
"What?" he asked quietly, "What are you on about?"
Claire stopped writing and looked directly at him.
"I'm not going to fight with you." She repeated quietly. "You're drawing on my pencil case and I am not going to fight with you about it."
Bender just raised an eyebrow and gave a slight shrug as he began drawing on the innocent pencil case again.
"Whatever cherry." He drawled quietly.
She fumed in silence but would not allow her temper to break. She couldn't understand what was with him but it was really pissing her off that he didn't even seem to care about her personal belongings.
But it was Bender and Claire knew of his love of fiddling and destroying things.
"Whatever cherry." She absently mimicked back, not caring that Bender glared at her.
They didn't speak for the rest of the lesson but that didn't stop them from secretly glaring at each other.
Claire had stormed out the second the bell went and Bender promptly followed her all the way to her locker.
He stood in silence and watched her as she got her books. Her movements were stiff and she slammed everything around.
Boy oh boy was she pissed off…
Claire slammed her locker with a satisfying 'CLUNK!' and she turned around to Bender, swinging her bag over her shoulder.
"What?" she asked, annoyed.
Bender's left eye twitched slightly and Claire immediately knew that something wasn't good.
She suddenly got a fright when Bender slammed both of his palms onto the locker on either side of Claire. She found herself leaning against the lockers, trapped and probably going to regret pissing him off.
Bender glared at her in silence as Claire gulped, now slightly nervous.
"You're pissed cause I drew my art on your precious pencil case." He growled loudly, his voice rumbling with anger. "But you couldn't even talk to me about it."
She stared defiantly at him as she replied, "Cause I knew we'd fight about it like we do with everything else."
Bender looked at her, now slightly exasperated, "So you'd rather harbor pissy feelings towards me than want to fight with me? What the hell is with that Claire?!"
Claire made a small attempt to maneuver herself out from under his arms, but Bender was going to have none of it. With one fluid movement he placed both hands on her shoulders and pressed his body against her.
Keeping her completely imprisoned against the lockers.
She glared up at him, "You're so immature!"
"Well Claire at least I'm not being a total bitch!"
Bender was now glaring back at her and Claire began to hurt inside, knowing that she was the reason they were fighting…once again.
Why couldn't she just keep her big mouth shut?
"I'm sorry, I don't want to fight." She said quietly, no longer glaring.
Bender's expression slightly softened, but not by much.
"Then why didn't you say something in History?"
The anger was still there in his voice and Claire just sighed.
"Because I knew we would fight anyway."
He looked blankly at her, "We fight a lot don't we."
It was a statement not a question, and Claire couldn't help but look away and nod sadly.
"Yeah we do." She agreed, sounding very sad.
Her face fell when she looked into his eyes and saw bad news.
Oh shit, he's gonna breakup with me…
Tears suddenly began to prickle at the back of her eyes at this thought and Claire hastily blinked them away in hope that they would disappear.
But he still saw them.
"Why are you going to cry cherry?" he asked with sudden concern and care.
Claire blinked again and the tears disappeared. She had not been expecting the care and concern in his voice, but she had expected he would have laughed openly in her face and given her shit.
"Because it sounds like you're going to…" she started but found she couldn't continue as her throat suddenly closed up with emotion. Instead she looked away from his probing eyes and gushed quietly as the tears rose in her eyes, "It sounds like you're going to break up with me."
Bender looked at the teary princess in his arms, trapped against the lockers, at his mercy and with one word he could break her into a million pieces. He had never been in this sort of position with a girl before, so he didn't know what to say…but he knew what he could do.
Bending his head down, he kissed her gently on the cheek, causing Claire to give a small smile although she wouldn't look at him. Slowly he kissed from her ear, along her jaw line towards her mouth.
When he reached it, Claire allowed him to kiss her and her sadness and tears away.
With every sweet kiss he gave her, the more he convinced her that he was not going to break up with her over something as small as this argument.
By the time they stopped, all was forgiven because this had been how they had solved all of their arguments this week.
Kiss and make up.
Claire wrapped her arms around Bender's neck and hugged him tightly. "I'm so sorry," she apologized and Bender just hugged her in return.
"Don't worry cherry, this argument was a walk in the park compared to what I normally get at home." He replied with a degree of grimness in his voice at the mention of his home life.
Claire hugged him extra hard.
Eventually they separated and said goodbye, before going their own ways.
Bender called out to Claire, "See ya tomorrow cherry." And she just waved back and smile.
Knowing that their budding relationship was safe, she was confident that tomorrow was going to be very interesting indeed.